Brexiteers worst nightmare: an unraveling Europe

History is coming via the Pez dispenser, in quick and (for the establishment) sour doses.

Every week, it seems, tears up assumptions about Europe — and Britain’s future place in it. This one began with yesterday’s unexpected elevation of François Fillon to lead the French conservatives into battle in next spring’s presidential elections. It’ll end with the possible election of Europe’s first far-right head of state since before World War II in Austria and the probable fall of Italy’s prime minister in a constitutional referendum — followed, albeit still improbably, by the ascension to power of a populist, anti-European movement.

There was always a thought that Brexit would unleash political processes that at the end of the day could change Europe more than the U.K. No one expected it to happen quite this quickly — nor that America would join the party. The common thread that unites all these recent developments is, to one degree or another, the re-nationalization of politics. Whether it is Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” or his friend Nigel Farage’s declaration of “Independence Day” on June 23 to mark Brexit, the vote winners of 2016 are rejecting the politics of solidarity, cooperation and alliances that built the post-1945 world order.

The striking aspect of Fillon’s success was his ability to play Trump in the Les Républicains party, despite being a card-carrying member of the elite for four decades. He hit notes familiar from Brexit and the U.S. elections about traditional values — appealing to what former Le Monde editor Natalie Nougayréde calls “white Christian anger” in her column in the Guardian today — and a rapprochement with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In her own way, Theresa May's recent paeans to the working class and bashing of cosmopolitans show another establishment politician who has restyled herself for changing times.

Fillon would presumably be a more predictable president than the likeliest alternative as of today, National Front leader Marine Le Pen. Her party, which tacks right on values and hard left on economics, has mooted a referendum on the euro. So has Italy’s 5Star Movement, which stands to win with either outcome this Sunday. If the referendum fails, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will likely resign, possibly prompting national elections that the anti-establishment party could fare well in. If the electoral reforms are adopted, then it becomes easier for any party to rule on its own in future, as 5Star wants to. A win in Austria for the far-right candidate Norbert Hofer would be, as we wrote this morning, “the latest domino in populism’s march across the Continent.” Then of course come next year’s big ones: elections in the Netherlands and Germany, both home to anti-establishment parties on the rise, along with France.

The old Brussels religion of integration — that faith in an ever closer European Union — is on political life support. The one question that matters now: What will replace it? If the EU manages to keep the eurozone whole and Schengen in place, little truly will change, Brexit or not. But nationalistic winds are blowing hard, ripping away at the ties that bind the other 27 EU countries together. France or Italy out of the euro would probably mean the end of the Union as it exists, of Schengen and possibly NATO.

This scenario puts Brexiteers in an intriguing bind. They want the U.K. out of the EU, but presumably don’t see an upside in the collapse of Europe? Even of more turmoil? It is, after all, their largest trading partner and home to millions of Britons. London will want reliable negotiating partners on the other side of the table throughout the long divorce talks. There’s an irony worth mulling over here, one of many: Post-Brexit Britain needs a strong and stable Europe, which the politics unleashed by Brexit, among other things, is currently doing so much to unravel.

This insight is from POLITICO’s Brexit Files newsletter, a daily afternoon digest of the best coverage and analysis of Britain’s decision to leave the EU. Read today’s edition or subscribe here.